


Slow Burn

by hellkitty



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Gen, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 03:50:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1065425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty/pseuds/hellkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For tf-speedwriting's Advent Calendar.  <a href="http://www.goodwp.com/large/201108/19486.jpg"> this picture </a>  </p><p>Watching Firefly and simultaneously lamenting how Shane McCarthy no longer writes for IDW Transformers, I found myself missing the wonderfully slightly-cheezy tropiness a la Spotlight Cliffjumper.  So, here's some of my own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slow Burn

  
The city would burn, he decided.  It should burn, bright enough to fill the night sky, hot enough that he could feel it from where he sat, on top of the ice-scarp, heaved up by centuries of frost.  It should burn, and warp the landscape, melting the ages-old ice, which would creak and groan and crack, like the world falling into ruin.

Worlds had fallen into ruin, too many for Sixshot to remember, in the heyday of the Phase Sixers.

And then there were none, Sixshot thought.  First Overlord, gone rogue, still thinking he was the center of anything. Then Blackshadow, disappeared under a swamp of rumors about the DJD.  And now Sixshot, a free agent, cut free and clear by Megatron himself. 

Sixshot wasn’t stupid.  He knew it was less about having earned his freedom than that Megatron had soured on the whole Phase Six protocols, and that he didn’t trust even Sixshot not to betray him.  Everyone else had, after all. 

He was still a Decepticon, and a loyal enough one, and that was more than enough for Megatron.   The plans for the war had changed, and Sixshot found himself…obsolete. 

It was a novel experience.

  
And the city should burn because he was free, but he was still Sixshot, still found a feral, forged-mech's fascination in destruction, in the manifestation of his own power.    
  
Snow blew, fine grained like sand, a glittering powder that sparkled even in the darkness, like ground up stars, the wind that carried it cold like knives, cutting through the gaps in his armor as he sat, in wolf mode, claws like pitons dug into the ice, watching, waiting, planning.    
  
"There you are!"    
  
He half-turned his head, one wolf-ear flicking back.  It was Tyria: he knew her voice by now, the indigenous humanoid species on this planet, blue-skinned like the oldest ice, wrapped in white pelts of animals whose names he didn't bother to know.  It was Tyria, coming to find him, settling down next to him on the icy cliff, her young face pinched meditatively as she followed the line of his body.    
  
"The city, huh?"  She rested her chin in her hands.  "I've never been. Always wanted to, you know, just to see what it was like.  Domnum says it's all sin and vice and such but me? I just think he don't like things not from around here." She nodded agreement with herself. "I hear there's all manner of exotic stuff, off world, out of system even."  She looked over at Sixshot, where he sat, haunches on the white ice. "Kind of like you."    
  
He gave a whuff of sound.  Metroplex had damaged his vocalizer, but it hadn't really bothered him: Phase Sixers weren't known for their conversational skills.  Besides, the sound was good enough for Tyria, who turned, her face framed in the white fur halo of her parka, blue mouth pulled into a smile, shadow-grey eyes crinkled at the edges.  "I wish you could talk," she said.  "And you could tell me stories of all the things you've seen and places you've been."  She scooted over, and he felt the softness of the fur against his foreleg, and the warmth of her organic body against him.    
  
She probably wouldn't like the stories Sixshot had to tell.  They'd crossed paths, weeks ago, as his autorepair was overclocked, repairing the damage the metrotitan had done before blinking out, gone somewhere Sixshot couldn't follow, and it had been like this from the beginning, Tyria talking, him listening.  Her tribe didn't much like it: not that he blamed them. Even if they didn't recognize him, he was large and radiated violence like an electromagnetic field. Which Tyria somehow...blunted, like a sort of rheostat on his urges.  
  
But he hadn't asked for any of their stores or supplies, and when Tyria had loaded up some supplies on his shoulders he hadn't complained--much--except about the indignity of it, and then in querulous chuffs of static, and stood patiently till they'd unloaded him at the end of the day.  Their tents, their tools, weighed almost nothing to him, and once they trusted him not to bolt, it had turned into a wary mutual tolerance.     
  
And so they'd made their nomad's way across the icy terrain, day by day, in slow nibbles of distance he could have covered in hours. But he stayed, inching along at their pace, because he was free, because there was no rush, because of, well, Tyria, who talked to him and had brought him a blanket he hadn't needed that first night.    
  
"I wish I could at least know your name," Tyria sighed against him.  And he shifted his position, moving himself behind her, framing her with his forelegs, baffling aganst the howling wind with his body, warming her with the soft hum of his engine.  The city would burn, like a star of rage, an inferno of everything Sixshot was and had been for millennia. It deserved to burn.  
  
But.  
  
Maybe tomorrow.


End file.
